dying is an interesting feeling
i suppose, up till now, ive never seriously considered it
the physical sensation
guess it's cause you never really know how you'll go
it just happens, and it happens
that's it
sometimes its really slow
or very painful
lucky ones go peacefully
and for them, it's all very tranquil
though who has luck

inside of me a storm rages
inside of me an old man has a stroke
inside the fire blazes
fresh bricks of burning coal

there is emptiness in me
and it fills me up
so much so

i drown everyday
drinking up a cup
of nothing but the old

made of memories
mostly bad, but some good
adding to them each day
naught but rotting wood

and your family
termites
and your friends
pests
and your lover
a lumberer

we stood tall;
free and unabridged
a testament to our youths

but when they called us down
we stayed standing
our height shrunk
wrinkles worn on torn porcelain
a graying of old stone

we grew fatter off decadent fruit
while caged animal fed on imprisoned others
and the minority was culled to a head
in internment camps
in privatized prisons
in the courts
and the legislator's building
in the very creation of the nation
stillborn at conception
an aborted fetus carried to term
delivered, to be chucked to the wayside
weened off the milk of a tormenting yearn
to make, to build, to think, and learn
but we stifle that now
in favor of rockets to fly
leaning toward oil to burn
will there be a scream when we die
or will this silence hold firm?

you left me an ellipse
in loves conversing

your hand touched my cheek
the other, resting on my neck
and when you brought my ear close
you said,
"Forever comes tomorrow"
and we kissed

but forever came and went
and the tired lies we told one other
went to bed
so maybe I'll sleep a little too

i am a butterfly
dreaming as a man
i am war's passion
crimson like blood let
and the dove
labored by his own beak;
the last breathed breath

when its later in the day
do our definitions matter,
or how we saw things?
when what we did
is what has been done
and at last
we've run our run
does it matter
who we were
or of us, that had become?

all is forgiven
in the setting sun

warning
take heed,
you are dying

don't wait in watch, the sands fall,
crack the hourglass
and feel its grit,
run it, betwixt your fingers

brave the dim
and unlit
trails not as of yet marked
frontiers still foreign

but should you not,
in your death
let you find the peace
you never distilled through life

reading words, of hues emery
darkening shades of the fastly falling frenzy
awash with the world
haunted by the memories
of those things here and gone,
still the jabs come,
by no tangible entity

iridescent burning out
wellspring of love
running dry to match the mouth
of one mighty
Huascarán

dearest
at our embrace
the world's spin ceases
the carousel careens to a standstill
as sound to snow
sandy shores to an ocean's flow
we are the gears, grinding to a halt
in spite of the machine

twist the blade
you sunk in
its pearlescent handle
gleaming in moon glow
basking in light
of refracted sun
itself, almost beautiful
in how much pain you were possible of causing

that we may fall
to arms

blades sharpened
on the grindstone of hate
atlas stands

shouldering the weight
that their words
were willed to do wicked deeds
he weeps

at the long suffering
at length and still here

boyhood hid nothing
the snow only recently, laid to rest
to hang like rhime
but adolescence gave it a new lense
breathed in new breath
and animated the rotten corpse
to be so in shock, sickening awe
as to shriek out
"𝘐𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴!"

these lungs, i breathe
like these legs that i may move
arms to wave with & ****
and a mouth to make sounds
soon shall all rot
my body dissipate
when maggots feed from my flesh
and the soft tissue break down

but do i go on?

above the tumid silence of our lives
where we might have a chance encounter
with the ill comforted;

removed from hope and desire
in the stale winds of impermanence
as pollen on the breeze

to look upon us, magnanimously
in eyes with tears